The Zero Stone Part 15

His mind was closed to me, and I knew he was on the defensive, waiting for a second attack from our common enemy. Suddenly he stiffened, fell over, and lay still, though his eyes were open and I could see the fluttering of his breathing along his side. Hory had used a stunner even as Eet had foreseen, but how effectively? And I could not query Eet as to that.

Around one of his forelegs was the ring. Perhaps his pawing at my smoldering clothing might have been translated by the watcher into a hunt for that. Now we lay still, I belly down, my head turned toward Eet, he flattened out, his legs stiff. Where was Hory?

It seemed to me that we lay there for hours. Since we must be under observation from the ship, there was no chance to move. I had gone down at the touch of that searing beam, not in a planned fall, and my right leg, half doubled under my body, began to cramp. I would be in ho shape to carry on battle should Hory decide I was not safely dead. In fact he would be a fool not to crisp us now as we lay.

Except that Eet was sure the Patrolman wanted him. And he had contrived to collapse so close to me that now a sweeping beam aimed from the ship could not remove one of us without killing the other into the bargain.

I could not raise my head to watch the sh.o.r.e line or the span, both hidden by the parapet. Winged things came out of nowhere to buzz about us, crawl across my flesh. And I had to lie and take their attention with no show of life. In that period it was driven home to me again that a man's hardest ordeal is waiting.

Then I heard a crackling. Someone, or something, was climbing the span from the sh.o.r.e, the frail structure creaking and crackling under the weight. A many-legged thing crawled across my cheek and I shrank from its touch, so that it seemed my very skin must shrivel My field of vision was so limited! I was not even facing the direction where booted feet would be visible as they crossed the parapet. I heard the metallic click of the sole plates of s.p.a.ce footgear on the stone.

Now - would Hory finish the job by simply turning a hand laser on me? Or would the illusion Eet promised hold long enough to deceive him? Perhaps Eet was truly stunned, unable to provide such cover.

Those few moments were the longest of my life. I think had I come out of them with the touch of old age upon me I would not have been surprised.

The boots came into my restricted line of vision. The crawling thing on my face now rested across my nose. A hand reached down and I saw the sleeve of a uniform. Fingers closed on Eet, swung him aloft out of my sight. I waited for a burning flash.

But (and for an instant I could not believe it) the boots turned, were gone. I was not yet safe; he could pause before he climbed the parapet and fire at me again.

I heard the sc.r.a.pe of his boot plates die away and listened once more to the creak of the span. He had only to pull that down or burn it to make me a prisoner.

How long before I dared move? The need to do that became a growing agony in me. I lay and endured as best I could. What came at last was enough to fill me with despair - the clatter of a ship's ramp being rolled in. Hory was back in his fortress and he had activated the sealing of the ship. Preparing to take off?

I waited no longer, struggling against the stiffness and pain in my body, rolling into the shadow of the parapet. Then I pulled along to reach the span. It was still in place; Hory had not stopped to destroy it. Perhaps he intended to return and investigate what lay here after he had made sure of Eet and the ring.

Half sliding, at a speed which left splinters in my hands, for I lay almost flat on that fragile link with land and allowed its slope to carry me to the beach, I reached the sand. Once ash.o.r.e, I sprinted for the underbrush, expecting at any instant to be enveloped by fire.

The very uncertainty of what might be happening, or Hory's next move, was as hard to take as if I were under physical attack. I must rely entirely on Eet. And whether at this moment he was a helpless captive I did not know. But I could not expect more than the worst.

There was one fairly safe place if I could reach it - directly under the fins of the ship. Always supposing Hory did not choose that particular moment to press the off b.u.t.ton and crisp my cowering body by rocket blast. Throwing all caution to the winds, I dashed straight for the ship and somehow reached that hiding place. My side was ablaze with pain. The laser had not really caught me - I would have been dead if it had - but it had pa.s.sed close enough to burn away the fabric and leave a red brand on my ribs.

So far I had managed to keep alive. But now what? The ship was sealed, Eet imprisoned in it, and Hory the master of the situation. Would he lift off world? Or could his curiosity be so aroused by the vault that he would make another visit to it? The ring! What if he used the ring even as we had done and followed its guide? But would he be so incautious- "Murdoc!"

Eet's summons was as demanding as a shout from an aroused sentry.

"Here!"

"He is now under my control - for how long-" Eet's thread of communication broke. I waited, tense. Dare I beam to him where I was and how helplessly outside the sealed ship? If his control had slipped, then perhaps Hory would be able to pick that up too. I knew too little about his own powers.

Then I saw the loops set in the fin, surely meant to be hand- and footholds, leading up to the body of the ship. But would they bring me to any hatch? They might be for the convenience of workmen only. That they might - a thin chance - be indeed a way in, made me move.

My seared side hurt so badly as I racked it by my struggles that only will power kept me going. I reached the top of the fin. My ladder did not end there as I feared it would. The holds were now smaller, less easy to negotiate, but beyond them was the outline of a hatch.

I took a chance- "Eet!" I am sure my summons was as strident as the one he had roused me with, because I knew this to be my last chance. "A hatch - lower - can you activate the opening?"

I knew that I was asking the impossible. But still I made my way toward it, clung to the side of the ship as sweat poured down my face and arms, threatening my hold on those slippery loops.

But the crack around the sealing was more p.r.o.nounced. It was giving. I loosed one hand and beat upon it with all my strength. Whether that small expenditure of effort did hasten the process, or whether the controls suddenly loosened, I had no way of knowing, but the whole plate fell away.

What I crawled into was a much larger s.p.a.ce than the upper hatch into which the ramp led. And it was occupied, almost to the full extent of the area, by a one-man flitter - a scout intended for exploration use.

I had found not only a door in but a possible escape out. Before I crawled over and around the machine to the inner hatch, I got out of the flitter one of its store of emergency tools, a bar for testing the composition of ground, and wedged it with all the strength I could to hold the hatch open. Now, even if Hory tried to take off, the ship would not rise. That hatch would have to be closed and he must do it by hand. The protection alarms of the ship would see to that.

The inner hatch had no latch, and it gave easily. I was out in a corridor. I had a laser, and I had also taken an aid kit from the flitter. Now I leaned back against the wall to open that. I brought out a tube of plasta-heal and plastered its contents liberally over my ribs. That almost instantly-hardening crust banished pain and began the healing, giving me renewed strength and mobility.

Then, feeling far more able to tackle what might await me above, I slipped along the ladder. Had I had more than a pa.s.senger's knowledge of the ship I might have found a more secretive way from level to, level, but I did not. So I had to go openly, up to the control cabin, where I was sure I would find both Eet and Hory.

I did not attempt to touch minds with Eet again. If my last appeal to him had alerted the Patrolman, then Hory would guess I was in the ship and would be readying traps for me.

One small advantage I had. My feet had nearly worn through those coverings which had been the linings of the s.p.a.ce boots. The material was tough but it had become very thin. The lack of boots now gave me silence as I took the core ladder one hesitant step at a time, listening ever for either a betraying noise from above, or the sound of engines.

I had advanced to the level which held the galley. As yet I had heard nothing, nor had I had any message from Eet. The silence which covered my advance now seemed ominous to me. Perfect confidence on Hory's part could keep him waiting for me. And since I would emerge from a well in the floor there, he would have me at his mercy when I reached my goal.

Now I had only those last few steps. I flattened myself against the ladder, tried to make of my body one giant ear, listening, listening.

"I know you are down there-" Hory's voice. But it sounded thin, strained, almost desperate, as if its owner was in such a vice of tension as to be on the raw edge of breaking. What could have reduced him to such a state?

"I know you are there! I am waiting-"

To burn my head off, I deduced. And then Eet broke in, but he was not addressing me.

"It is no use, you cannot kill him."

"You- you-" Hory's voice arose in an eerie shriek. "I'll burn you!"

I heard the crackle of a laser beam and cringed against the ladder. Then I found myself climbing without my mind ordering my hands and feet into action. There was ozone in the air and I saw, shooting across the mouth of the well, flashes of light.

Eet once more: "Your fear is self-defeating, as I have shown you." He seemed very calm. "Why not be sensible? You are not unintelligent. Do you not see that a temporary alliance is going to be the only solution? Look up at that screen-look!"

I heard an inarticulate exclamation from Hory. And then Eet spoke to me.

"UP!"

I took the last two steps with a rush, remained half crouched, my laser ready. But I did not need that. Hory stood, his back to me, a laser in his hand, but that hand had fallen to his side. He was staring at the visa-screen and I saw over his shoulder what held him oblivious.

Across the inlet, facing the platform of the vault, a square of gleaming metal pushed out of the brush, advancing onto the sand at a crawl. I do not know what type of machinery it hid, but there was a small port open at its top. And I thought that whatever lurked behind it was certainly a deadly promise.

How well protected this ship might be I could not tell, but there are some weapons which it might not be able to withstand. A quick lift could be our only hope. But - the bar I had left in the hatch - an anchor keeping us grounded.

"Eet-" I paid no attention to Hory. "I have to unstopper a hatch - so we can lift-"

I half threw myself into the well, skidding down the ladder in a progress which was a series of falls I delayed from level to level by grabs at the rails. Then I slammed along the corridor at the bottom, wedged past the flitter once more. I had done my work of locking the hatch open almost too well. Though I jerked at the bar, I finally had to use the b.u.t.t of the laser to pound it loose. At last it fell with a clang. I pulled at the far too slowly moving door, brought it shut, dogged it down as fast as I could.

Panting, I started back up the ladder. Would Hory's solution be the same? If so, I would have to reach a shock cushion before we lifted. Also - what was going on in the control cabin?

My ascent was not as speedy as the descent had been, but I wasted no time in making it. And I half expected to be greeted by a laser blast; or at least threatened into submission.

But Hory stood with both hands on controls, not those of the pilot, but another set to one side. A beam flashed out from the ship. The visa-screen allowed us to follow its track as it struck across the platform. But it was mounted on a higher course now, to hit directly on that wall of metal moving slowly out of the brush.

There was no resulting glow of the sort that would have followed such an impact on any surface I knew. It was almost as if the shield simply absorbed the ray Hory hurled at it.

I glanced from the screen to look for Eet. There was a burned-out, melted-down ma.s.s of wiring to one side of the pa.s.senger webbing. But if that had caged the mutant, it had not done so for long. Now he clung to the pilot's seat, swinging back and forth, as intent upon the screen as Hory.

A second or two later, and the ship rocked as if a giant fist had beat upon it. Not from the direction of that advancing shield, but from behind. We had been intent upon one enemy and lowered our guard to another. There was no time to a.s.sess the nature of that second, only to feel what attack it launched. I kept my feet by grabbing at the back of the seat. Hory crashed against the bank of b.u.t.tons he tended, caromed off to the floor. Lights flickered and ran wild across both boards.

Eet sprang from his hold to the edge of the board. We were slightly aslant, enough to make it noticeable that we had been rocked from a straight three-fin stand. Another such blow would send us over, to lie as helpless as a sea dweller stranded ash.o.r.e.

"Cushions!" Eet's warning rang in my head. "Blast off-!"

I caught at Hory, pulled him over against the pilot's chair so that we both lay half across the webbing. The quiver of the ship's awaking was about us. I saw Eet's paws playing across the board, his long body seemingly plastered to that. Then we did indeed blast off - into a nothingness of mind.

EIGHTEEN.

There was the sickly taste of blood in my mouth, a lack of clarity in my mind- "Murdoc!"

I tried to raise my head. Under me, for I lay on a smooth surface, a vibration reached into my body, bringing into life every ache and pain I had. I rolled, brought up against a wall, clawed above me for support, and at last got to my feet.

Fighting against dizziness, I stared slowly about. Eet still clung to the edge of the control board. And drawing himself aloft, even as I had done, was Hory, blood trickling from a gash along his jaw, his movements discordant and fumbling.

I turned to Eet. "We upped ship?"

"After a fashion." Seemingly he was not so affected by the force of the take-off.

"Back on the sealed course again-" I could remember better now.

Hory shook his head as if trying to clear it from some bewildering fog. He looked at me, but in an unfocused way, as if he did not really see me. Or, if he did, my presence had no meaning for him. He put out a hand to catch at the pilot's seat, pulled himself laboriously into that, and relaxed in its embrace.

"We are on course." His voice was drained and weak. "Back where we were. Next set down will be at the Patrol base - or do you want to reverse again?"

He did not turn his head to look at me as he spoke. If the active combativeness had gone out of him, there was still a core of determination to be read in his tone as his voice grew stronger and steadied.

"The Guild are in control down there." I did not know what I wanted, save to keep from sudden and painful death, a fate which had dogged me far too long. Perhaps some men savor such spice in their lives, but it was not to my taste. I was so tired I wanted nothing but peace. And a way out - with neither the Guild nor the Patrol snapping at my heels. The only obstacle to that was that neither organization was one to relinquish easily what it desired. In that moment I d.a.m.ned the day I had first laid eyes on the zero stone. Yet when I looked to Eet and saw he wore the ring about his forelimb, something about it drew and held my eyes. And I do not think I could have hurled it from me had it lain within my grasp. I was as tied to it now as if I were bound by a tangle cord.

"To no purpose-" That was Eet. For a moment I did not understand him, so far had my thoughts ranged.

"Look-"

His paws moved and on the visa-screen appeared a picture.

"This registered as we took off," he explained. "It remained."

I saw the platform of the heads approaching sharply, as if we had crossed above it. And I remembered the ship had been slightly aslant.

"The tail flames of the rockets" - Eet used his instructor's voice - must have swept across it"

He did not enlarge on that but I understood. The flames - could they have resealed, or cleaned out the crypt? If sealed, then the cache of the best stones was once more hidden. And we were the only ones who knew of their existence! A bargaining point? The stones we had seen in the room of the ruins had been close to exhaustion, those in the vault fresh. They were probably the cream of those owned by the ones who had established the tomb. If the Guild depended upon those from the ruins, they could still be defeated by whoever had the others.

I knew that Eet was reading my mind. But he remained silent, so that Hory could not share my realization of that small superiority. The mutant continued to watch the visa-screen until it went blank.

"They are not going to find what they want," he said to Hory.

The Patrolman lay in the webbing as one exhausted. The blood on his cheek was clotting. His eyes were half closed.

"You have not won either," he said, his words slurred.

"We never wanted to win anything," I responded, "except our own freedom."

Then I felt a sudden strange sensation, a sharpening of contact- Eet's thoughts? NO! For the first time I touched, not Eet, in such communication, but another human brain directly.

I tried to break away. It had been hard at first to accept that Eet could so invade my mind at will. But somehow I had been able to stand it because he was alien. This was far different. I was being pushed against my will into a raging torrent which whirled me on and on. And even to this day I can find no proper words to express what happened. I learned what - who - Hory really was - as no man should ever know one of his fellows. It is too harsh a stripping, that. And he must have learned the same of me. I knew that he meant to bring me to his form of justice, that he looked upon me with scorn because of my a.s.sociation with Eet. I could see - and see - and see- And that enforced sharing went on forever and ever. I saw Hory not only as he was now, but as he had been back and back down a trail of years - all of which had formed him into the man he now was - just as he must also see me- I fought vainly against the power which made me see so, for I feared I would be utterly lost in that other mind, that Hory was becoming me, and I Hory. And we would be so firmly welded together in the end that there would be no Hory and Jern, but some unnatural whirling ma.s.s fighting itself - trapped so- Then I was released and flew out of the mind stream as if some whirlpool had thrust me off and out. I lay retching on the floor, aware again that I had a body, an ident.i.ty of my own. I heard noises from the pilot's chair which suggested my sickness was shared, even as we had shared other things - too many of them.

Somehow I got to my hands and knees and crawled to the wall again, once more pulled myself up by holding to the equipment here. I faced around slowly to stare at Hory, while he looked back at me, dully, with a kind of shrinking.

Beyond him, on the. floor, lay a small flaccid body- Eet!

Keeping hold on the wall, for without that support I was now helpless to move, I edged along until I pa.s.sed Hory to stand above the mutant. Then I let go, fell to the floor rather than knelt, to gather up Eet's body and hold it tight against me. That same emotion which had moved me when Hory had tried to kill Eet in the engine room flooded through me once more. It strengthened me, shaking me completely out of my daze.

Eet had done that - had made us free of one another's minds. And he had done it for a purpose. I cradled Eet's too-limp body, smoothing his wiry fur, trying to discover some indication he still lived.

"You know," I said to Hory, "why-"

"I know-" His words came with long pauses between them. "Is - he - dead?"

I stroked and smoothed, tried to feel some light breathing, the pound of a heartbeat, but to no purpose. Even so, I could not allow myself to believe the worst.

However, I did not try to reach Eet's mind. Now I shrank painfully from such contact. I had wounds which must heal, the strangest wounds any of my species may ever have borne.

"The- aid- kit-" Hory's right hand rose, shaking badly. Yet he managed to point to a compartment in the far wall. "A stimulant-"

Perhaps. But how well medication intended for our breed would serve Eet I did not know. I worked up to my feet again, holding the mutant tightly to me, and began that long journey around the cabin. One-handed, I fumbled with the latch, snapped open the cubby. There was a box - in it a capsule. And that was slippery between my fingers, so I had to use care to bring it forth. One-handed, I could not crush it.

Holding it and Eet, I retraced my steps, bracing myself erect by one shoulder against the wall, back to Hory. I held out the capsule. He took it from me with trembling fingers while I steadied Eet's body. Hory broke the capsule under that pointed nose, released the fumes of the volatile gas. His hands fell back into his lap, as if even that small exertion had completely exhausted him.

Eet sneezed, gasped. His eyes opened and his head moved feebly as it turned so he could see who held him. He did not try to leave my hands.

Once more I gathered him close to me, so that the head, raised a little as if to welcome such contact, now rested on my shoulder close to my chin.

"He is alive," Hory whispered. "But he- did- that-"

"Yes."

"Because we must know - and knowing-" The Patrolman hesitated until I prompted: "And knowing - what? You are wedded to your purposes. But you must know now that mine were not as you believed."

"Yes. But - I have my duty."

He gazed at me, but again as if he did not see me for what I was, but rather beyond, into some future.

"We are not meant-" He continued after a pause, "to know our own kind in that way. I do not want to see you now, it makes me - sick-" His mouth worked as if he were about to be physically ill.